Souvenir Photo at the UN

BEIRUT -- No concrete results are expected from the September 22 meeting at the United Nations among US President Barack Obama, Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (I write this the morning of the 22nd in Beirut, before the meeting takes place). This marks the end of phase 1 of Obama’s intriguing foray into Arab-Israeli peace-making.

I disagree with the widespread sense that Tuesday’s meeting is mainly a photo opportunity. I think it is more of a farewell souvenir photo for some of the players -- though who exactly is leaving the scene is not quite clear. I suspect that peace among Palestinians and Israelis will not be achieved by the trio of Obama, Netanyahu and Abbas. It is not clear, though, which one of them will depart the scene. They are all vulnerable.

It was exactly eight months ago that Obama, on the second day of his presidency, went to the State Department and announced both his personal focus on Middle East peace-making and the appointment of George Mitchell as his special envoy to the peace process. The two other principals -- Netanyahu and Abbas -- have persisted in their traditional mode of personal behavior and policy directions. Netanyahu has dug in his heels, fortified by the knowledge that his right-wing coalition government and perhaps a small majority of Israelis share his hardline positions, especially on resisting American pressure. Abbas and his government, heavily disconnected from their fellow citizens, are almost mystically absent from the negotiating process that existentially defines the future wellbeing of the Palestinian people.

The important question now is how the Obama team will respond to the realities it has encountered since January. These include the sharp and public Israeli resistance to the American call for a total freeze on Israeli settlements and colonization of occupied Palestinian land, a limp Arab response to the American call for gestures of Arab normalization with Israel, and an unusually blunt Saudi public rejection of that call.

President Obama has put his own and his country’s credibility and name on the line in his repeated demand that Israel freeze settlements unconditionally. Netanyahu responded by rejecting this, and simultaneously expanding settlements. The United States cannot now just throw up is hands in exasperation and say that it tried and failed. What might happen next?

Obama is new to this arena, but Mitchell and some of the other Middle East hands in the administration are seasoned negotiators with direct experience in Arab-Israeli diplomacy. It seems logical to assume that Washington expected this scenario, and has multiple options to activate for Phase 2. All the evidence of Obama’s character, performance in winning the presidency, and policy actions on multiple domestic and international fronts since January indicates that he does not undertake initiatives like this lightly. Rather, he and his skilled aides calculate methodically their assets and liabilities, and then devise a strategy for success, taking into account expected resistance and setbacks. Obama faces a momentary stalemate, but not a surprising one.

He moved decisively on this on the second day of work because he understood how Arab-Israeli peace could impact positively on several major issues he faces, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and terrorism. The Arab-Israeli conflict for Obama is just another policy challenge, like the economy, health care, the automobile industry, Iraq, Afghanistan and others, but a very high priority one in foreign policy. On Mideast peace-making, Obama faces vicious domestic opposition that will not only oppose him, but also try to unseat him. The pro-Israel lobby groups in the United States that have kept a low profile to date will now likely step up their open opposition to Obama’s pressure on Israel to freeze settlements, especially sensing that he is vulnerable because of his multiple challenges on health insurance, Afghanistan and other pressing policy issues.

Mitchell has experienced such hardball tactics before, and Obama has proved himself to be a master at strategic politics. They and their colleagues must now implement one of their Plan B strategies. We have no idea what they have in mind in this respect, but I would bet the house that they – unlike the Clinton and Bush examples of recent years -- do have contingency plans and other policy options to use after Phase 1 of their Middle East diplomacy ended in today’s predictable stalemate.

Given his full plate of immediate policy challenges, Obama is not likely to push hard to start Phase 2 of Arab-Israeli peace-making, so we should not expect any dramatic moves. More likely, I suspect, is a slow process whereby Obama clears some of the other pressing issues from his desk -- health care and the economy should be on a good course by December -- and turns to the Middle East again, probably with a different set of characters in the picture.